


Fresh pages, for you and me

by Anonymous



Category: Black Sails
Genre: -ish I mean?, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epilogue, Fluff, I mean even I cried while writing what do you expect, I mean so much crying oh my god, M/M, Reunions, Sharing a Bed, THANK YOU BLACK SAILS, all the feels, hand kissing, sea metaphors just to call myself out, tender affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28636599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: James saw him turning around and it was a miracle he didn’t fall to his knees, praising every god he never believed in.It was really him.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41
Collections: Anonymous





	Fresh pages, for you and me

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I watched Black Sails and I wrote this immediately after the final while crying. Literally. I didn’t know any spoilers so everything was so raw and I let it out as much as I could. It was like 2AM so it could be better and I'm sure there are a thousand other fics like this, anyways, enjoy my tears haha.

_"Waking from a long and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight."_

Shock rattled through him first, chilled him to the bone in beating sunlight. His breath forgotten as the world came to a halt. For someone who was cradled by the temper of the sea for so long, that was one scary thing to feel. As James replayed all the conversations with Silver, trying to convince him of the impossible, eventually leading to this place, it was like his first experience of his own heartbeat. Amplified, surging, bursting with power as if the sea had taken hold of it.

It fought fiercely in his chest and he felt light-headed.

Nothing mattered but the pair of eyes that found him. For years, James was either a monster in someone’s eyes or a fearsome captain. Grown men tore their glances away from his sight, awaited his orders. It’s been some time since someone had looked like that to him. As a person. As James and not Captain Flint or whatever else they named him in the cautionary tales.

Thomas looked at the person he became and yet his eyes saw the man he loves. Unconditionally, courageously. It all reflected in his eyes, and the world as James knew it was falling apart, in the same manner as seeing light after his colorless nightmares.

James McGraw never knew that happiness could be like this. Soul-tearing, blinding light dispersing the darkness from his sight in a moment. It felt like a dream, yet he breathed life in with every inhale. The dead don’t come back. Not like this. Never like this. Approaching towards each other, one foot after the other on a single line as if it was drawn by fate. The soul resurfacing in tired eyes. Swaying together in the warmth of the sun, dust clouds cloying around them like in powdered ribbons. A black shirt that seen blood and tears and sweat melting together with a white one, that has been stroked by the sun all afternoon and dirt that stuck to it.

And none of that mattered. A prince was a prince no matter what covered his back. James enclosed him in his arms, the strength that commanded, earned fear and garnered respect now brushed the gentlest melody on Thomas's back. His rough palms touched a warm, firm body under them. None of it felt like in his dreams. When he dared to dream of him at all. He was real. Firm and right where he belonged.

His entire body, capable, worn and weathered but still bursting with fight was trembling in his hold, unarmed against the affection that welcomed him home. He let all his strength bleed out of him, seep into the ground along with the man that needed it. Not anymore. Not like that.

What else could he ask for when everything he ever wanted is currently sniffling to his shoulder. Who else can say, that the love that was torn away from them returned? Right where they wanted them to be.

He’s done fighting. He’s home.

* * *

James couldn’t wait to sneak into his room. As if Thomas knew what he would do—and of course he did—that he will not rest until he’s beside him, he had waited for him. He must have felt his gazes burning into his skin all day, James could imagine his subdued smirk at it and sure knowledge that he will find him.

He knew that he will let himself be shown around, the world a mild noise around him, the land a blur of brushstrokes. That he will be shown the bath and take one, shown the diner and eat some, then rest.

He needed it.

Disbelief clutched his heart from time to time, and his heartbeat’s tempo ebbed and flowed with them.

_Hush. All in due time._

He needed his time to calm. To dare to believe what was in front of him. And if it wasn’t, to bear the illusion that made him the happiest, no matter how painful. To rub the scar of a wound and realizing that it’s gonna stay there no matter what.

To accept, that the man who emerged from a tragedy, was no more. He had served his purpose and it was time he returned to the sea, where he came from. Where he existed.

It was peaceful. All around. The rhythmic noise of shovels sinking into the dirt. The whispering gossip between the trees and bushes. Birds and gently murmuring horses. And nothing else. No shouting men in rage, sails torn by the claws of the wind. The ever-lasting punches of waves on a ship.

The field was still and solid under his feet. It did not sway and throw him about in temper. He could live with that. He could let it ground him and even embrace him one faraway day.

As long as _he_ is there.

Thomas had waited him by candlelight and James felt just a little embarrassed that the grown man he was, from all the gruesome stories he stepped out of, was crying upon seeing another man. Sandy blond hair and smiling blue eyes. Not the vibrant, seductive colors of the sea, but the gentle blue of the skies that bring a mild wind to one’s tired face. And he was tired.

He motivated men, twisted them like rope to whatever goal he was about to set, yet not a single word formed on his lips other than incessant trembling. Big, fat tears glided down his face with each step and he felt, properly felt how hot they touched his skin. When Thomas emitted a noise of affection at it, smiling as if he was a child, the dam broke and his world blurred with the unshed tears of years behind.

He wept in his arms and he let him, without a word. Like young in love, they kissed shyly, gentle not to scare the most precious dream away.

Burrowed to his chest and arms full of rhythmic breathing, James let the waves of rest claim him. He sank into a deep, soothing sleep after long years.

* * *

The bed was barely big enough for both of them, even on their sides, facing each other.

“I mourned you, for—for so long—” James's voice broke and Thomas took over.

“As did I, my love.” He blinked the tears from his own eyes, and James wanted to know how could he smile like that, like they aren’t just crying like babies. They kept touching each other, locking gazes as if the other would wisp away within a blink. Thomas rubbed his chest, his hand wandering back to his face every few minutes. Ruffled his beard and gently smoothed his tears away.

He needed to say it. At least lay the groundwork for it.

"I haven’t mourned you in solitude. And I refused to be silenced.” James's eyes burned with the world of pain and fury he recalled. Thomas will hear the truth and nothing but the truth. “I raged. I wanted to hurt the world for tearing mine from my chest and there wasn't a fucking day I didn't think of you.” 

His eyes drifted sideways, as if seeing a memory. “I kept hearing your voice. I found myself thinking: what would he do? What would he say if he saw what I become?” He took a fortifying breath and said, “I waged a war with your name in my heart. And I would have kept going if…”

He trailed off, but Thomas listened, intently and his hands still danced on his skin. Their eyes met.

“Did you think I will be frightened of you?”

Candlelight swayed and danced on his face, his eyes shining daringly.

“You aren’t?”

“I can only imagine what you had to do, or what you deemed necessary to do.” Thomas paused to search his gaze and only picked up after he gained his attention. “But I know you.”

“You don’t know the man I’ve become—”

“And you can tell me all about him. The blood, the darkness. The rage. I am the one who will hear it. All of it. Like no one before.”

There was depth in his words, ready to relieve him of the burden he had carried alone. James nodded, slow and heavy while willing his tears back. He shifted closer to Thomas, wedging his leg between his more, his fingers playing with blond stubble.

“Why have you mourned me?” James asked then, finally connecting what Thomas had been saying, now that some of the tightness of his chest has been eased. “I wasn’t dead.”

“It didn’t matter. I lost everything,” the last word was merely a breath, the weight of it hitting James with fresh tears. “My life. All my love. All I knew. Everything was as good as dead and I had to say goodbye. To survive. To stop yearning for something that will never come.”

James searched his hand on the wrinkled sheets, touched it and realized how different it felt. How much stronger it had become, with its own scars and rough patches. Hard work and loneliness.

“I’m here now,” he said, “I won't leave you. Ever.”

“I wouldn't let you.” Thomas smiled. Again. “I would fight til my last breath against it.”

“I should have—” James started, breath stuttering close to a sob, but Thomas was having none of it.

“Shh—no,” he interrupted, “shush. No dwelling. You couldn’t have done anything.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. This place exists in secrecy for a reason. It’s still a wonder to me how your friend was able to find me. If you had attempted the same, you might have ended up dead. Truly. What would I have done then?”

James had no answers. He just cried, wounded, remorseful and entirely full of love and gratitude. It was all too much to hold and he didn’t mind crying so much because he wasn’t alone with it. He was hurt and bruised at more places than he ever thought to be.

He squeezed Thomas's hand and lifted it to kiss his fingers. Thomas had always chuckled at that—now tearful—he used to say that he wasn’t a lady to be hand kissed. He understood now. The emotions the lips couldn’t say but pressed gently to his skin. Loyalty to the grave. Unending respect. The purest love his battered heart still reserved for him.

“I’m a bit sad,” Thomas started after a while, “that we met here. That this is where we found each other again.”

“Do you think I care?“

“You can’t—” then he corrected, “shouldn’t fight your way out of here, you know?” He furrowed his brows at him, a gesture that made James think they were in the bed of their old room. Or lounging in the sunkissed grass outside where no eyes could find them.

“I don’t think I even have the energy to. I don’t give a flying fuck where we are, as long as you’re by my side.”

“I am. Always will.”

Thomas's hand brushed his face again, traced his eyebrows and curved under his eyes. Mapped his latest wrinkles, gifted by the years and salty wind.

“Then it doesn't matter,” James reassured him. “I honestly don’t care. It’s peaceful, actually.”

“It’s a place for honest work and nothing else,” Thomas finished. Resolute and calm.

“Something that I learned, although, is that no one knows what life will bring. Me being here—us being here, is proof of that, don’t you think? But for the sake of theories, would you mind it? Growing old with me on a plantation?” James huffed, joking as if that wasn’t their current outlook in life.

“I wouldn’t,” Thomas replied, voice low and touched as if he was proposed to. “It’s enough,” he sniffed a little, a much clearer and calmer look in his eye. “For now. You can heal here. From all the wounds you gathered. From all the hurt the world has treated you.”

“I caused just as much of it,” James said, honestly.

“Does it hurt?”

He closed his eyes and nodded, thinking of all the death that stuck to his hand.

“Then we will heal those too.”

“We?”

Thomas, ever cheeky and knowing how to burst his heart, just ducked his head a bit and kissed the same hand James just cursed in his mind. The hand that caused wounds and hurt and pain was unused to such a tender touch and it nearly undid James to just feel it.

He trembled and squeezed his eyes shut. He can’t take it. Not yet. It’s too much.

* * *

The happiness of feeling a heartbeat against his ear, his palm, his lips, was unthinkable and barely manageable to hold. Thomas traced paths among his freckles, wandered from bone to scar to scratch like a wandering ship at sea.

“I still hear it sometimes. The sea. At night, especially,” James whispered into the quiet.

“I imagine you will, for some time. Did it lull you into sleep?”

“It’s hard to resist. As cruel as it can be, it soothes like nothing else. Swaying, rumbling, back… and forth… Over and over.”

“I feel the same about the wind.” Thomas brought him closer and James felt his words resonate in his chest. What a feeling.

“The wind?”

“The trees outside,” Thomas said, his fingers playing in the air, like on the keys of a piano, “they wave and whisper in the dark. The field has this soft melody to it when the grass grows tall. Maybe it will be your new lullaby.”

“I have something better,” James said, lifting his head enough to kiss above Thomas’s heart.

* * *

Thomas traced the scars on his chest, his fingers feeling out and smoothing over the shape of them until he remembers. He had closed his eyes and rested on his shoulder, blind to the loving gaze James adorned him with. He wanted to know the story of each and all of them, hearing them like a kid would listen to a bedtime story.

It used to be Thomas who read for him, who lured him into slumber with his mild voice and returning glances. Now he listened. To everything James had to share. And he told all of it, turning every page of the book in the adventures of Captain James Flint, leaving them behind one page at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> Told you I cried.  
> Sorry for not mentioning Miranda but it was sad as it is, I didn’t want to drag her death into here too. 
> 
> I tried to imply that NOPE they aren't staying at that damned place, but as they were now, it sufficed and if life happened there for them, then they would go through it together. 
> 
> Since I literally just finished the series and I’m not part of the fandom, I’m gonna use this opportunity and say: James is so thickkk 👌 but obviously I couldn’t write Thomas saying that HAHA. Please be gentle in the comments, I'm not a native speaker <3


End file.
